Pinterest has been a hot topic lately, and with social media outlets skyrocketing, small businesses owners have begun looking into utilizing the Pinterest platform to increase profitability and drive traffic back to their sites. These same tactics can be employed by small business owners looking to sell their businesses, though there are a few things to think through before diving in completely.
Continue reading “Piquing Interest with Pinterest: Selling your Small Business”
Let’s face it. We’re all consumers. So, what makes us buy from one business instead of another? What’s the motivation behind your buying decisions? Does your website represent your business well enough that you can attract new customers based on your Internet presence alone?
While on vacation last week, we decided to do some minor renovations. Waking up one morning to a forecast of rain for the rest of the week, we suddenly decided that it was time to replace our wall to wall carpeting. We also decided that we needed it done within the week. Continue reading “Can Your Small Business Compete with the Big-Box Stores?”
As a small business owner or entrepreneur, how do you know whether or not a new strategy or tactic is working? If a month from now, you look at your Google Analytics and you see a significant change to your website traffic, will you know the cause? How do we know whether or not a new strategy or tactic is working? Which social media sites should we maintain our presence on? When is it time to cut our losses and stop doing something that isn’t producing the results that we desire?
Continue reading “Tracking Changes to Your Website Blog and Social Media Strategy”
As 2011 comes to an end, I want to thank everyone who has taken the time from their busy lives to help make Keep Up With the Web a place where we can all learn from each other. I truly appreciate the conversations that we’ve had and I look forward to continuing to help each other grow our businesses, engage our readers and website visitors and reach our individual goals.
Continue reading “End of the Year Recap – a Time to Reflect”
Not too long ago, I wrote a post about low-cost resources that small business owners and entrepreneurs can access. I mentioned the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), the Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) and universities. My article started an interesting conversation in the comment section and lots of readers had their own suggestions. These are all great resources but what if you run into an issue and need help today? Do you have a built-in support system? Do you have a go-to person that you can shoot a quick email to and ask for suggestions?
Continue reading “As a Sole Proprietor or Entrepreneur Where Do You Turn for Support?”
Feeling stressed out? Overwhelmed with everything you have to do? As a small business owner or entrepreneur, you may reach a point where you need help juggling all those balls. Sometimes the decision is easy – simply outsource the task to a professional. However, if you find yourself strapped for cash, an option that you may want to consider is researching to see if there are any government funded resources available to you. Here in the United States, the government has resources available to businesses including free consulting and other services to assist small businesses. (I always refer to them as my tax dollars at work.)
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The popularity of blogging is increasing every day, as more and more people realize that it has a powerful earning potential and also allows them to express themselves to a large audience. However, it can be difficult to begin a blog when you’re already balancing work, family, and other life commitments. How do you find the time to add one more activity to your list? It’s important to consider what you want to get out of blogging and how much you’re willing to put into it. Here are five tips for juggling blogging and office work. Continue reading “Guest Post: 5 Tips for Juggling Blogging and Office Work by James Adams”
How can an entrepreneur or small business owner differentiate their product/service from everyone else’s? After you define your niche target customer and identify your marketing message, what else can you do to stand out from the thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of websites that are offering a similar product or service? We all know that you should offer your potential customers and clients multiple ways to contact you. You can provide a contact form, an 800# and your basic contact info for customers who want to call, email, fax or even send you snail mail.. What if you could easily offer your customers a way to chat with you online? Online-help may be the perfect customer service tool to help you keep your customers and clients on your website long enough to answer your call to action. Why not try it? It’s free (or $20 to have the software professionally installed).
Continue reading “Differentiate your Website From Your Competitors with Live Help”
Are you a blogger? If you are, are you using your blog to build awareness and drive traffic to a website for an existing business or is your blog your business? Or do you simply blog as a hobby? What fascinates me lately is the number of people who start blogging in hopes of making a living solely through blogging. How do they intend on doing this? Is their blog designed to promote a product or service? Is the product or service their own or someone else’s? Is the plan to make money through Google AdSense, affiliate programs or multi-level marketing? So my question is … “Is your blog your business or do you blog to promote your business?” Continue reading “Is Your Blog Your Business or Do You Blog to Promote Your Business?”
Whether you’re doing business online, in-person or both, what you do both professionally and personally is a reflection on your business. I remember growing up, that there were certain kids in the neighborhood that my parents would not let us play with. We always thought it was totally unfair and that our parents were prejudiced (not sure if we were old enough to even understand what that meant). I remember my grandmother saying something about “guilt by association”. Being the rules-person that I am, I listened but it wasn’t until I was an adult with children of my own that I started to truly understand. Then I became a business owner and other small business owners and entrepreneurs were telling me that everything you do is either a relationship builder or a relationship destroyer. That’s when it started hitting home and I started paying attention.
Continue reading “How Not to Behave When You’re in Business”
